rent law reviews. please welcome edward larson. [applause] >> first of all i want to thank you for having me here. savannah is one of my favorite places and being here on valentine's day, how better could be? we are having a wonderful time. the organizers have been fabulous how they organize this event. they deserve the applause you can give them. the way they pull people together, the level of contact they made with me in organizing this event, i wish to thank my

only possible criticism is that they scheduled me right up against mr. gwyn next door. i used to teach civil war history. lots of books come out on the civil war but not many of them are as good as his book rebel yell. of all of possible people to be scheduled up against i find that a little daunting coin. thank you for being here. is event must be full. second i thank my host j. ford was my host last night, took me to a wonderful dinner, the only possible qualm i have with that is took me after the author's reception, it was very late and was the pink house. they brought me a piece of fish that is bigger than a plate, the tailstock out on one end and there was so much food that i am stuff and i figure i have to

speak. the only wise than i did was liquor too. i turned down the wine and liquor and dime stuff from that food. i was not so lucky at lunch. i had a wonderful pleasure of -- you probably know him. a wonderful daughter and couldn't restrain on of liquor, not being there with sunny. after it that i was in the afternoon, there was some more drinking and tried to look up in any way. second, i would say i try to be somewhat brief i am not the only one standing between you and lunch. we're and savannah, one of the greatest places to eat. so i talk about my riding but i tried to get to questions for two reasons, if you are asking questions, i am talking about things you want to hear about rather than what i guess you want to hear about and second if

i keep you on it is because you keep asking questions and therefore is the questionnaire's fault you are held from lunge in savannah. what i thought i would do, i thought i would begin by just -- the very beginning and of the preface, never read anything from the preface but it will introduce what i want to say about myself in the book. a very short beginning here. on a chilly spring morning in april of 2013 i sat on mount vernon's broad front the odds the, over the potomac river, the window from the of stairs bed room was over my right shoulder. the east facing door to his first floor office directly behind me, washington would have seen much the same view 225

years ago knowing it might be a long time before he observed it again. the american people call him to the presidency and he was preparing to leave his beloved mount vernon plantation of seat of government in new york on april 16, 1789. due to private preservation efforts and public land use restrictions is this the over the potomac the one washington most loved and built his the odds of to frame survives virtually unchanged in the midst of northern virginia's urban sprawl. as an inaugural fellow at the national library for the study of george washington with the residency on the ground of mount vernon i was able to enjoy this and other scenes on washington's plantation many times over the course of the year. the view from this be out the became my favorite too especially at sunrise in the spring and flowering trees and give off a warm glow in

early-morning light. it was obvious why washington was reluctant to leave mount vernon for public-service image of the neither sought nor wanted. and six months earlier follow fellow virginian james madison, urging him to solve in the federal government applied equally to himself however. supporters of the new constitution and the union it created he implored madison, for getting personal combine their collective efforts through service and the new government to avert the great national calamities that attended without it. by 1787 four years since america secure its independence washington came to believe the country face as great a threat from internal forces of diss union in the mid 1780s as it had from external ones in the 1770s. when he accepted leadership of the patriot army at the outset of the revolutionary war, now his country again called his

service, this time as the elected leader of the world's first extended republic. that is the opening of my preface. if you know what a preface is it is not an introduction and not an acknowledgment. usually book start with a preface. they may have also an introduction, they may begin with an acknowledgement. i have used all three in my books. this time i chose a preface. it tells you something about the author in a book but it is not essential if you are a reader, you don't need to read the preface. the book begins after the preface either with the introduction or with the first chapter. if you are a reader you shall always read the introduction. the introduction sets up the book. you cannot understand a book without the introduction. i begin my book on the scope trial, the pulitzer prize was an

introduction. you can't read the book if you start with chapter 1 or you are missing something and it is a strong introduction that stars with the famous famous amis' cross-examination of william jennings bryan on the stand and you get that up front and the idea of an introduction is to hook the reader and that introduction, my book is often using graduate history classes, structure of books and that is one thing people look for, you start with that hook to connect you. some people don't have an introduction. they begin with chapter 1. i would be curious how many of you read the prefaces. it is -- to most of you start with the practice usually? the introduction i hope you will remember you are really missing something, acknowledgements, how many people read the acknowledge on? authors do. when i am reading a book i

always read the acknowledgements. practices you don't need to read it. my book really begins with chapter 1. it begins with chapter 1. that sets the stage but the preface again tells you something about the author and the book. this is the book festival and i was given instructions, you want to hear about the writing process and the book as well as myself i thought it would be good to pull out front there. what does this particular preface tell you about me and about the book? i am in a church, i am in a methodist church, i was told you are supposed to have three topics in a sermon so i will take three things that deals with. first it tells a little bit from what you heard and if you hear more of it, how i research. you will see i started talking about placing me in mount fern

in. important to me as the historian to be on site to actually know the place and to know the ground as well as the historical record. i am an academic historian. i do have a day job. i am not only a writer but i live to write. the way i write, the way i research is not going to make a historian. i have to read all the records. i read so many records about washington, so many letters, so many articles, so many diaries but also wanted to be on site and that was the advantage of mount vernon they enabled me to have a scholarship where i could live on the ground and have an apartment on the ground. if you ever visited mount vernon it opened during the day and there are hordes of tourists. they're cute student groups with

students marginally interested garage groups from overseas, seems like it is well known, washington is well known around the world and you can't get a feel for the place. since i was on the grounds i could walk around will for the place opened after it closed so i could go sit on the great front porch and sit there and i would be the only one there and go over my notes in the morning and watched the sun rise over the potomac and in the evening walk around on the grounds. they still try to preserve the original pipes the early types of cattle. it is a wonderful place but it gives you a unique field because what i was writing about washington was when he was there. it was not when he was fighting the revolutionary war or when he was president. was when he was back home and

being there, going around whiskey distillery and seeing where he farmed, going to different areas where his farms were. he was a hands-on manager of his farm. people to get a five farms in the area. a lot of money where he married well and was able to buy the farm nearby and would force an everyday and inspect the works so i could experience with the experience and that gave me a closer feel for what he was like and also there were so many documents defy had any questions i could pull up the original document to look at the original false teeth which gives you a unique -- or what i was talking about in the book i talk about his brown suit, he famously war and american maid suit for his inauguration as president. very few gentlemen war american made cloth. he never wore it before but he thought when he was being

inaugurated president he should wear an american suit and there was only one place in america that made fine cloth which it had just opened in connecticut so he sent a note to good friend of his, number 2 man in the revolutionary war, henry knox. some of the main know of him. of massachusetts bookseller before the revolution and he was quite large but he was head of artillery and became secretary of war. so he heard about this place that made fine cloth and washington was close and tried to pick the best, i trust you. the color is not too good. pick one that looks the best. that is what the wind up with. he wore a brown suit for his inauguration. i could see the suit itself. putin out of the box the very one he wore. it is a wonderful thing to be,

to do on-site research in mount vernon. indeed, that may explain some of the book. the first book of mind that got a lot of attention, the first two, i got a book about scopes trial that ended up winning and after that i could write about anything i wanted to so i started thinking about on site what should i write about next? i just wrote about the scopes trial and led to many trips to dayton, tennessee. it was in tennessee. my second was on the galapagos islands that led to 17 trips to the galapagos islands when i could be with scientists working whistle i picked that in part because of 5 wanted to do hands-on research i would do it on the galapagos rather than tennessee, no offense today in. i wrote a later book about

antarctica and went to the south pole and go down to all the places and in fact i came back from antarctic a because i came here from antarctic aware i was last week. it may be colder here. i am not quite sure. i didn't expect that. i thought i would warm up finally but that help inform my top picks in being able to be at mount vernon for a historian is a real street, it is like at mecca. the introduction suggests that. it puts me in mount vernon. i don't talk about any place in the book, i talked-about washington after that. it talks about my style. i try to embarrass myself in both the place and the document. i read all the documents but if you are walking around dayton tennessee in the courtroom, staying in the room john scopes

lived in, if you are in the place where william jennings bryan lived, if you are there, at mount vernon you can't learn things you can never get out of the documents, it deepens your understanding it is not just mount vernon there are other places, i read about the newburg conspiracy, and it was very important in american history, it covers the liberation of new york city, came down from living for a long time in the valley, the hudson valley where he was in camp the encampment so i was at the encampment, you walk a ground and learn more about it but you understand the writing and i try to have that reflected in my work. in that sense i view myself as a historian. i don't write historical fiction but i am inspired by historical

fiction and love to read historical fiction. and james mcpherson catches it in the battle cry of freedom. is a wonderful book. ft can't trust everything in it as fact but it does give you the sense of the place. ..

>> i try to use a lot of quotations because i try to make -- which makes differentiating to me from some historians, but i try to have an eye for the quote that really captures something. i never use a long block and -- [inaudible] quote. when i read, i always skip those. i figure if the author can't summarize it why is he forcing me to do it? so i use small quotes, ones that are below 50 words so you don't have to block in denim. then i figure that's my job as a historian, to pull out the quirks of it. and if there's more than 50 words in a letter that we need to hear, well, you can use a

couple quotes and use a connection the way you're talking about it. because i think you need to hear the authentic words, but you just don't want to get lost in some long quotes. you might as well read the original rather than do that. so i try to pull out -- so i'm better when i can, when i can write a book about good authors and good writers and good speakers. the scopes trial, how brilliant. i had clarence darrow and william jennings bryan. and at the top of their game. my book about the 1800 election, i could draw on thomas jefferson. who could write like him? and john adams another great writer. they could write like angels both of them. they could also conspire like demons, and you see that in the 1800 election book of their fierce in-fighting vertebras election vicious -- vicious election. but, boy, could they write.

so it was wonderful for quoting from. now, that played into -- it was surprising how good a writer george washington is. we don't think of him as a speaker and a writer, but he was a voluminous letter writer. he was writing letters all the time, especially during this period when he was pulling the country together these wrangling 13 states to make a union. so he was writing all of his friends and acquaintances from the time of the revolutionary war who had now scattered to their separate states such as john jay in new york or henry -- or knox up in massachusetts i already mentioned him the morriss down here, the pinckneys of south carolina. he had a lot of attachments here in georgia. so he's trying to pull this place together before the constitutional convention that led to the convention, and then after it in the ratification battles, he was actually a very good writer. and so i could pull on his original letters and quote from

them. of course, he was corresponding with some excellent writers people like lafayette, jefferson, ben franklin and so i can have the letters back and forth. calls many speech -- also many speeches. so i could draw on quotations. again, not long ones not ones that i think lose the readers. i always figure readers are somewhere like myself, and i get lost with too long a quotation. but a pithy one makes it authentic, so i use a lot of quotations. that's part of my style, you saw that in there. i also want to bring my figures to life. and that was one of the wonderful things about washington. i mean it's easy being tom jefferson, bringing thomas jefferson to life. he had, he was a very human person. it's easy to bring a clarence darrow or a william jennings bryan. but george washington, we have this view of washington, for many people he's like a wax figure in madam trudeau's museum. or a carved figure up on mount

rushmore, he is distant to a lot of us. i think a lot of it is that terrible picture painted on the $1 bill, that was paint near death with a bulging, he looks like a squirrel with his oversized false teeth. actually, that's not what washington was like, and i got to see that in this period of his life when he was much younger before the presidency and after he was a general when he was not in political power when he didn't have -- or military power. he didn't have an office. he was a farmer. he was a plantation owner. he was a private citizen. and i could find out that he was a very, very affable person. he was a wonderful conversationalist. he was a great retail politician. he could tell stories at parties. he loved to go to parties, he loved to dance. he would go to a party -- of course, he was the choice, he

was -- when he was young, he was incredibly handsome because he was huge 6-2 and 200 pounds and when men were a lot shorter and women were a lot shorter. his wife particularly, was a lot shorter. she was under fife feet tall. it was an interesting matchup, but a profitable one nonetheless. and they were a wonderful couple. but people loved to talk to him. he was a great storyteller. in that way he was like a hillary clinton or ronald reagan -- bill clinton or ronald reagan. even better than hollywood. and he loved to dance with the ladies. he'd always dance with every lady at the balls he went to and he always went to balls because he loved them. he loved to go to teas. teas were popular back then so i could present washington as a person, and that's the comment that i've liked best that i've heard from so many people in the reviews and in the amazon.com

comments. he said, he makes washington come alive. he's actually like he could be a human being and not this wax figure. that's what i came to see. he had personal characteristics. i think that's important because if we want to learn from these people, we can't learn from a wax figure. we can learn -- history should be relevant to us today because people don't change. issues change, we have different sorts of issues, but people are is the same. and washington had incredible virtues. he was truly a great man because of his personal characteristics and his personal virtues. but they're all virtues that we could have too. so i could see -- i don't have one, but i could see having a bracelet what would george do, or what would washington do. you could go a long way with that sort of advice. you also were able to learn individual things about him because i was dealing with this period, and i got to be at mount

vernon. first, he never had any wooden teeth. i've seen his teeth at mounter vernon -- mount vernon. they have many of his false teeth. i've seen them other places. he never had wooden teeth, i can assure you of that. what made people think he had wooden teeth is he had many of them made from -- some of them made from walrus tusks were ivory, and those pick up tea stains. and he was a he drank so much tea, i don't know how he stayed in bed at night. [laughter] southerners who drink sweet tea, and i don't know how he went to sleep because he drank so much tea. i guess you get immune to it. but they would stain his teeth. now, not all of his teeth were -- i've seen many of them, and they're sort of interesting to look at. by the end or at least by the period i was dealing with, he only had one of his own teeth left. it was a molar. so these false teeth had a hole in them where he'd fit it over

that one molar on the top and the bottom, you know, they weren't the greatest fit in the world. and that's why he wasn't -- i think -- why he wasn't a great speaker. because it was tough to speak up here like i am with your teeth sort of falling. but if you're one to one next to him, you know, you can talk fine. but to make a speech, it was sort of uncomfortable. so many of his great addresses like his farewell address when he stepped down were printed only. printed in the newspaper rather than spoken. but not all of his teeth as i said were ivory. one that i discovered when i was there -- other people knew this, it's not like it was an original discovery, but i've seen it. he also had teeth made, which was common back then, made with human teeth, with slaves' teeth. and they'd pull them out of, you know, they'd take them from some of his slaves. and i looked through and i found -- i was helped on this, i

was helped with researchers in many ways -- but i found ledgers where he paid the slaves 17 shillings per tooth, at least during my period, for the teeth that would then go into his false teeth. they actually tried to implant some of them during my period, implant them in him. you know, make a hole pull it from the slave and put it right up in his own mouth. they didn't work for him, but they did -- some of these implants worked. there was one french dentist who came over, he came over during the revolution, and he also visited mount vernon several times and tried this procedure. and i was curious about 17 shillings. well, i suppose you don't have to pay your slaves anything for their teeth if you really want them, but he did. but i was curious how that played out, so i managed to look through the records. he lived right through arlington, virginia, and there was a newspaper in arlington, and so when the dentist would come up and also be doing transplants not just for washington, but for others i

looked what was the going rate for teeth? if you were buying teeth on the free market, how much did they cost? 42 shillings was the offer in newspapers anybody willing to sell their teeth, so i think washington got a good deal at 17 shillings. [laughter] for the teeth. i do not, i don't know whether the slaves volunteered for 17 shillings or if he asked them. i don't know that. i suspect they volunteered. also during this period he made another thing that was very human about washington. he remember he grew up. when he was born he didn't know if he'd inherit a lot of money. he wasn't like thomas jefferson or james madison who was born into wealth. his father was wealthy, had a plantation but he was from the second marriage. he had a lot of half brothers from the first marriage, and they were going to inherit. and washington thought he'd have to work for a living, so he became a surveyor, and he was out on the frontier. he also tried to join the british navy, but his mother wouldn't let him go in the british navy.

and he loved being out on the frontier, he was home on the frontier. and during this period i got to write about, i got to experience, he got to go back to the frontier. he's the most famous person in the world, here he was, you know the liberator of america. everybody knew george washington. but he had frontier holdings from before the war, and he had to go out and try to make them profitable. so he went out on the frontier over brad docks road -- braddocks road and he tried to visit his frontier plantation early in his retirement from being general, and they scared the bejesus out of him because he got out there, and the frontier -- they were, as he put it later, on a pivot. they were ready to leave the united states. the british had never left the frontier force. they were still trading the with the indians for furs, and they need guns to shoot those furs and those are just as good at shooting settlers.

spain was moving up into the southwest from new orleans pushing into mississippi and alabama which were parts of georgia back then. georgia was on the run almost. the native americans were pushing georgia back. and you were losing a lot of the federal territories because the united states had no army, because it had no taxes. there were no -- the central government, such as it was had no ability to raise taxes, therefore, it couldn't have an army, couldn't defend the frontier, and the trade was going up through canada or going down the mississippi. so these frontier settlers, they had no interest -- well they got to the first settlers, first frontier land ownings, and they didn't want to pay him. got to the second one, there were squatters on his territory who wouldn't leave. and, in fact, he got so mad at them, he cutsed at them -- kissed at them, and -- cussed at them, and they fined him. that's how they treated george washington. and he couldn't get to the third

one because the native americans were in the way and he had been warned they were going to ambush him. they had already killed his agent, scalped him and then burned him alive. you don't die with scalping apparently. and this were waiting for washington, so he never got to his third territory. so he comes back and immediately sends off letters, we have got to do something we're going the lose the frontier. we're going to lose it if we don't have a stronger, more effective union. so seeing that, going those places and many of those places where he'd stopped are still part -- and he thought well how do i connect the frontier with the east? i write about this in the book. they need a canal. they're going to go up the st. lawrence river or the mississippi river, we've got to build some sort of canal. canal building was big back then in england and france, and, of course he knew all those people from the revolution their war. we've got to build a canal from the potomac over to the ohio so

they can get their goods to market because only by commerce can we keep this country together. and so he ends up being president of the canal company trying to build a canal. but he goes out there, and he comes back. instead of following the settled route, he says i'm going to find a way to run this canal. so he got on a horse, and he was a huge man. he was a great horseman, a great horseman. and he came back just like he was a kid. you can read his can accounts of it the letters he writes of it. he just -- here he is, george washington the most famous person in the world, and he bush whacks across what's now west virginia and ohio sleeps, sleeps out in the open driving rain sometimes just under his cloak. he drops in at country cabins, can you imagine? you're out the in the middle of nowhere in a little shed, somebody knocks on the door and you open it up, and it's george washington? you have nothing to serve him.

some places, he said, there was just a little corn, nothing for his horse, but he was blazing a trail. but you can tell that he loved it. he was in his 50s, but he was like a kid again because that's where he was happiest. well, this is the george washington, you know, it could be "into the wild." there's a great book for you i was thinking he would have gone up to alaska if he could have. it's another sort of story about washington, you get to feel what he's really like. again, i got to see his clothes because i was doing his inauguration and despite all the pictures of him with a tricorner hat, he never wore a tri-corner hat. he wore a bi-corner hat. he never cut down a cherry tree so far as i know, but he planted a lot of trees. some of them are still there. you can actually put your hand on a tree that george washington himself planted. there's some wonderful tulip

poplars. so you get to get immersed in this great man who really can be his virtues can be a model for us today and also his lifestyle. he comes alive. finally, the introduction sort of shows my choice of topics the last thing i'll talk about. you see this in my books in general. there's some historians and biographers and great journalists and writers who can take a topic that has been written about and written about and written about and just do it better. i think david mccollum, who's son's -- whose son's here, who can take a well known topic and just tell it very very, very well. i'm not that sort of historian. i try to look for p gaps in the historical record, stories that aren't told. so i wrote about the scopes trial because there's a great movie about it, "inherit the wind," great play. i think it's still showed, i think every high school probably puts it on.

but no historian had ever researched and written about the scopes trial. no historian had ever done it. you can see it with some of my other books. nobody had written about charles darwin telling an overall view of science and the galapagos. people talk about the south pole but nobody talks about the science done on those expeditions and activities done on those expeditions which i think -- and i think readers of my book will agree -- are just as gripping as anything scott am mundt did. 1800 elections same way. there'd never been a blow-by-blow book about the 1800 election, so i took that topic. and by finding gaps in the literature, i could write about those in a way that would tell that story. now, that brings me to washington, how people -- people ask me when they heard i was writing about washington, how in the world could yo, who write

about gaps in the literature write about? there's more books about him than any other american. but one of the things i had discovered and discovered it here while i was teaching at the university of georgia where i taught for 20 years is when you teach about american history you spend about two days or three day on the american revolution, and it's george washington from cover to cover. it's all about george washington as you're reading about it. nathaniel green too, when you're covering the south. the fighting quaker, one of the great oxymorons of all time. [laughter] buried right here, a few blocks from us. i'm a huge nathaniel green fan. but washington you get a lot about george washington. then you get, then you have a couple days or one day when you're talking about the confederation. you talk about the utter collapse of the con confederation how everything's going to hell in a handbasket, how the states are falling apart, the

frontier's being lost as i mentioned between the friend and the british and the spanish vermont is actively conspiring to join british canada, a debtors' insurrection in massachusetts, the property rights are in danger in georgia and in rhode island where they're printing paper money like it's going -- like they would have done in greece when they can, when they can print the drachma, and you have this massive inflation that's draining property rights, new york's exporting all its taxes into connecticut and new jersey like they'd like to do today if they could but they actually could do then. because there was no -- the central government didn't control interstate commerce. every state could print us own money, could impose tariffs against other states and everyone, all these little tin pot governors were trying to expand their state at the expense of hair neighbors. and the country was -- of their neighbors. and the country was falling apart.

the whole place was falling apart. and you talk about that period. but you hear nothing about washington. the last you heard was he went on back to his farm and was running his plantation. now, then you get to, of course the first presidential administration when the federalists take over, and it's all about washington again, because he's president. and i'm sitting there over time as i'm teaching this year after year because it's not mentioned in the history books and not talked about much in the biographies of washington. what was this guy doing? he was the most famous man in the world a celebrity, by far the most beloved person in america, the only one close would be benjamin franklin. he's gone back to his farm and he's just farming while everything he'd fought for for nine years, as commander in chief nine years in the field without leave or pay? that's sacrifice. and leading men, many of his men died in his service. and he cared deeply about those men. one thing about washington, he was very very loyal and very -- he had very close friends. very close friends.

people trusted him. he's just sitting on his plantation and letting the country fall apart? so i wanted to go back. so i read everything that he wrote and everything that was written to him and he was a voluminous letter writer. and, of course, a letter from george washington you never throw away. he was the most famous person. and so we have tremendous amounts of his letters. and i could read all the -- and he oh, my -- everyone wanted to visit him. so all these people were visiting his plantation. he would have 10, maybe 15 people staying there every night. these people would turn up unannounced and uninvited many times and stayed for the day, and then there's no inn nearby so spend the night. i have this great -- there was a great letter where he mentions, he sends off a letter in the late, long time after this in the 1790s where he writes, you know -- where he writes it's in the late afternoon. no it's in the midday. he writes: if no one pops in --

yes, he did use that phrase -- nobody pops in in the next two hours, martha, my wife and i, will have something we haven't had for over 20 years; dinner alone at mount vernon. he had so many guests, he never could eat alone. now, i could follow their diary because, of course, their wrote about their visit to mount vernon. and so i could piece together what he was doing during this period. and, sure, he was farming. he was a wonderful farmer. he was a wonderful inventive farmer. he came up with new tech teaks. -- techniques. he built the largest dis tillly in the united states -- distillery in the united states. and he had a he rotated his crops, and he innovated with fertilizers, and he changed crops. he changed from tobacco which wasn't profitable over to grains. he was a very innovative farmer.

he was involved in that. but he was involved in saving the union. constant letters to governors, to former revolutionary compatriots that he knew, to individuals all over the country, what can we do to save this country? and many of them would visit him. madison spent months staying at mount vernon before the constitutional convention working out the details. he would write to people like knox and john jay saying what can we do, and he'd take their letters and compile them in his own hands about what we need in a new constitution. he took that to philadelphia. and at philadelphia he was a hands-on negotiator to pull together and create the constitution. he wasn't a wax figure sitting up front. i came to the conclusion they often say in the textbooks that james madison is the architect of the constitution. well, if james madison is the architect of the constitution -- and i won't take that away from him -- then george washington was the general contractor. and any of you who have ever

built a house or put an extension may know an architect may have a plan, but it's the general contractor that gets it done and that's george washington's role during this period. that, i viewed, as a gap in the literature. well or, i've already probably talked too long. i'm scared to look here at the time, but that's the story i was able to pull together and tell. so if we have time, we have questions, i would be delighted to take questions x. if not, i'll inflict some more reading on you. [laughter] >> yes. i don't know if i'm on or not. >> you're on. >> it's been said about george washington that he was not a great orator. i was struck, however, when i read your book about the newburg

conspiracy that he was a consummate actor. and i think the audience might be interested in your perspective. >> that's true. he wasn't a great orator but he was a great political actor. john adams, who rarely had a nice thing to say about anyone said about george washington, of course john adams was eclipsed by him john adams was vice president when washington was prime president, and he fought washington earlier over the conduct of the war he said washington had style, he knew how to command the stage. and at newburg he famously commanded the stage by giving a mumbling address but then had what was probably preplanned pulling out his glasses which people never saw, his reading glasses, and reading a letter. and he said, you know, going gray in your service, i've also lost my sight. and that humanized him before his men. and the newburg conspiracy was a

pivotal point in america history where there was a coup aboot. and he squelched the coup not by what he said but how he said it. and so many times, same way with the constitutional convention. he never spoke. he spoke privately all the time and he worked out negotiations and compromises privately all the time. in public his style was such, his decorum was such he could with an eye, with a glance he could silence a person. a famous scene in there one of the few times he spoke was there was a code of version. nobody could -- there was no recording of what was happening in the constitutional convention because it was believed if the word got out, the pressures would come from the outside. so they were kept secret for two and a half three and a half months while they met which was very tough to do with ben franklin who liked to to talk. they ended up sending guards out with him to the pubs at night so

he wouldn't say anything. one time a private draft was left outside and found outside, and fortunately, the sergeant at arms found it and brought it to washington and washington just looked out to the audience. it was actually the delegates from georgia who wrote this down. he said washington looked at us and said: this document one of our drafts, has been found outside. it was brought to me. i don't know which of you left it. whoever left it should come up and get it and never happen again. and he threw it down, and he walked out of the room. and the delegate from georgia wrote, nobody had the tenacity to go up and claim the document. and he himself ran back to his room and said i was never more relieved to find i still had the document in my room that it wasn't my copy. so he could command respect. he did it during the revolutionary war, he did it in the constitutional convention, he did it as president. he was a tremendous friend very

loyal, but he he had a sense of dignity about him that commanded a situation and commanded men and commanded people. question? >> yeah. i'd just like your opinion on given the situation that you've written the book about and the situation that began and during the civil war, who had the more -- [inaudible] do you think, washington or lincoln? >> who had the more difficult job, washington or lincoln? you know, the times helped create the man, and i think with the case of lincoln it was the tremendous challenges he faced. washington helped create the situation, because washington helped create the union that both by his service in the revolution and after. so they played a somewhat different role. i think it was a very difficult situation for both of them pulling things together and that's one reason why those presidents and later fdr who

faced the depression in world war ii -- and world war ii could stand out. virtually every listing i've ever seen of the top presidents in the united states, those are the top three. there were different situations and, you know, i can't put one over the other. washington created an answer by working with others. create the constitution and then instigating it. i think that both of them faced challenges. i suppose lincoln in some ways faced the more immediate challenge because he was thrown in the middle of a challenge as opposed to working it from the the beginning. we were fortunate as a country to have those two men at those times. washington always would attribute it to providence can. washington deep -- to providence. washington deeply believed in god. he deeply believed in god and a great sense of providence and he thought he was called to the

revolutionary war and that that was a cause that was a new experience. he believed america was something new under the sun, that there'd never been a government of the people. that was a phrase he used government of the people. lincoln later added by the people and for the people. and there had never been one with like that. there were a few isolated republics like switzerland or something, but no extended republic. it was a new experience. and at that time everything was led by kings and monarchs or military dictatorships or some sort of an aristocracy. as the russians would say, a government of the few, and we're a government of the many. and trying to make that work was a novel experience. and that's what inspired him most of all. you can see that in his letters that he's writing to others. he would write who but a britain would believe what is happening to us now? they said this could never work, they said we couldn't have a government of the people. you need a monarch because of the fallen nature of people. and now -- he's talking in the

confederation period -- now we are becoming the laughingstock of europe. everything they said about us is coming true. we need to show them that this can work. and that sense of urgency that he conveyed in his letters and that he felt and others shared like john jay or the pinckneys or the morrises, that sense is, what that sense -- we have a purpose. and he believed in this experiment. because he believed we would be a model, and he would write -- he said that in his inaugural address and in his letters. people flocked to america because of the type of government we have. and it's that sense of what he had -- and i think lincoln had much the same sense. and it made a lesser president, the south would have gone free because he couldn't have rallied this sense of what america could be. and washington had that. and that's -- this is the time

where it shows more than anything. next question. >> there have been many biographies and autobiographies on washington schlesinger and fdr. jefferson and fdr. in your opinion who has written the best two or three biographies on a president? >> autobiography, nobody did it better than grant. i know i'm in the south and i -- at least i didn't say sherman. at least i said -- [laughter] at least i said grant. grant's memoirs are truly a wonderful book. now, he had help. the story goes he got some ghost writing for mark twain so you couldn't do much better than that. but that's a wonderful book to read even in the south. so i'd always direct somebody to grant's memoirs. as for biographies, there are so many. there's so many, and they keep coming out. you mentioned flexner's multi-volume biography of

washington. chernow has a very good volume, the best one-volume if you want to cover the whole of washington. there's some great books about periods of washington life. washington's crossing is a really good book about washington crossing the delaware. i hope to do a little bit like that, i hope in my own short way dealing with another period focused periods many washington's life when i'm dealing with him is his return his period between his service as president -- as general and president. when you bring it up-to-date you know, i don't think there's a better a historian's historian than the current biographies or that are coming out about lyndon johnson. he is, you know there's nobody who writes -- nobody -- historians love his work because it's so detailed. now, you debt -- you get a lot about lyndon johnson. caro four volumes out now?

tremendous, tremendous books. good books about, several about you know, teddy roosevelt seems to attract wonderful biographers. some wonderful books about, about him. so it's a little bit who you like. jackson, some great recent biographies about andrew jackson. so it depends on who you're interested in and what you'd like. but i -- as a historian, i'd read the new ones coming out about he keeps bringing out one about every five years on lyndon johnson. i wouldn't have picked lyndon johnson myself, but you can sure learn a lot about the passage of power by reading those books. so those would be a few suggestions. they attract many great biographers, and that'd be a start. any other questions? yes. >> maybe not exactly on the washington topic but the constitutional convention. >> yes. >> one of the things that i find

groundbreaking about that is the system of checks and balances. and i'm just wondering if you know what the philosophical origin toes of that -- origins of that -- [inaudible] >> that's where you get, we asked about checks and balances in our government, and that's where you truly get madison as the architect of the constitution. i think that would be one element. george washington was a great man partly because he was very comfortable in his own skin. he knew who he was. and he trusted orrs, and he list -- others, and he listened. he didn't think he had always answers. he knew he could do certain things, and other people could do other things. and he would draw on expertise from other people, and i say this because it ties into your question about the checks and balances. washington probably wouldn't have thought about checks and balances himself. but he was, he was open minded, he would listen. you'd see that in every stake of

his life. you'd -- stage of his life. you'd see he wouldn't just run out into battle. he'd always call a council of his junior aides as well as his senior aides. so young people like hamilton and lafayette could be part of these conferences. henry lawrence from south carolina. he'd listen to them. he'd listen to the more senior people. and as president it was the same way. he invented the cabinet for that reason. can you imagine -- doris kerns goodwin, another great rival, writes about "team of rivals." whatever you want to say about his team of rivals, immaterial doesn't match having jefferson and hamilton in the same cabinet. and then you add henry knox and then you add in randolph from virginia. you talk about a team of rivals pulling them together, because washington would listen to them. he would listen to them and get advice to them. and so there's another thing about the cabinet in the -- nothing about the cabinet in the

constitution, but he invents it because that's the way he was a general. he was also that during the runup to the constitutional convention. he would listen to others. and james madison had asked thomas jefferson to find him all the books he could find about constitutionalism, as it were, and send them to him. and james madison was a bookish sort of person. he was one of the sort of people when he was talking to you was probably looking at his own shoes or maybe in an extroverted moment be looking at your feet when he was talking to you. he was sort offer nerdy and he'd sit there and work out things. brilliant though. he was thinking about checks and balances within the government; that is, between the branches of government as a he called them. it came out during the convention that others like roger sherman pushed him to also think about checks and balances between the states and the central government which madison didn't initially think of.

and washington was sort of slow to pick up on that but he trusted. he trusted his aides and he listened, and he knew he didn't know everything. and he absorbed these ideas. and he only gradually figured out all this, and he picked up on that the idea of checks and balances. and when he receives he encouraged -- after the constitution was sent out, he encouraged people with -- he would write to people asking them to write essays about the constitution, to push ratification. and the ratification debates. and among them he asked john jay and alexander hamilton and james madison to write. and they all wrote something called the federalist papers which he thought was the best collection of papers he'd ever read on government. and there you could see in his letters back to madison that he finally figured out exactly what madison meant by these balance of powers, because it's so nicely explained in the federalist papers. and so with that he adopts, he sort of understands this notion

of the balance of powers. but he trusted madison initially enough to run with that. and so that's where this idea of balance of powers between the branches comes from. now, he had such a strong presidency because -- we hear we , we know this because of what they wrote -- because washington had been willing to give up power after the revolution. the british propagandists constantly said why are you revolting, they'd say to the american, to give up one king george king george iii for another one because every reeve pollution their leader -- revolutionary leader always becomes a tyrant. look at napoleon. washington always said he'd resign when the war was over. people didn't believe him. he did resign whens it was over. when george iii said if that man resigns, he will be the greatest man in the world, and he did people knew that. jefferson wrote from france when it happened, he said this act is

what sets our revolution apart. so people could trust washington with power because he chose to give it up freely. that was captured a bit in the newburg conspiracy. and so they trusted him with more power. that's probably why they gave the presidency as much power. no other country has really followed our route. other countries, they did follow being governments of the people. they tend to be parliamentary deck accurates with the prime minister running things -- democrats with the prime minister running things. madison thought that that would be helpful for preserving individual liberty. and what washington wanted the reason why he thought we needed a constitution was he felt what was a threat was individual liberty, private property rights in states like rhode island economic prosperity because the country was split into bunch of pieces and political independence itself was a threat. and he wanted a constitution. and he pushed for its

ratification on those grounds. we need to protect individual liberty and a big step of that was balance of powers. we need to protect private property rights, hence the constitution has its features that prevent states from infringing contracts. this was happening in rhode island and limiting the printing of paper money. we need to have, we need to have a national market economy that can roll the economy rather than each fighting. so you have the central government with complete power over interstate commerce. and, of course, you have a government that can raise taxes and have a military force so they can secure and protect political independence and open the west. washington always wrote about we need to open the west because that is our frontier. that's who we are. if we don't have the frontier america would not be america because that's an open valve for people who don't have opportunity in the east to go west and make a name for themselves, make a place for themselves open land and also where easterners can invest.

so it's those notions. and those were the things he cared about going to the constitutional convention. and so many of the things madison wanted that are in the virginia plan never came to be in the constitution. everything washington set out to have in the constitution, everything was there. so that shows how these ideas and the way he could communicate these ideas and balance of power was an important feature for part of it. i've probably gone too long. so i thank you very much for coming here. [applause] and it's a pleasure to be here. thank you. [applause] >> interested in american history? watch american history television on c-span3 every

weekend, 48 hours of people and events that help document the american star. visit c-span.org/history for more information. information. >> here's a look at some books that are being published this week. >> next, jesse hagopian, editor

of "more than a score," and the history teacher at garfield high school in seattle washington takes a look at standardized testing. >> thank you. so welcome everybody for braving the elements and making better. my name is brian jones. i'm an educator and an activist in new york city and as jason said i'm going to moderate our event. just a few words about event and we will kick it off. i will introduce our panelists and let them keep it off and will have some discussion after that. we are here, no doubt you understand for a very important reason. to mourn the decision, the fateful decision to not run marchand lynch on the one yard line last night. to protect jesse hagopian from future pepper spray incidents. to talk to pineapple.

or to celebrate the launch of this book "more than a score: the new uprising against high-stakes testing." obviously, there is a distractor question. there's nothing relevant. you can just eliminate that one right off the bat but the other two are possible. either of those make sense. if you're confused by anything i say just google them and they will make more sense to you shortly. in all seriousness we all know probably everybody in this room has taken a test a standardized test at one point or another in your life. tests are nothing new. they been around for a long time but it seems like we are living in the moment where the stakes attached to tests have never been higher. not only to standardized tests determine a child's future in many places but they can determine the future of the teacher working with a child they can determine the future of principals and administrators.

the guidance counselor, the gym teacher, the music teacher, the art teacher. everybody's date, the whole school's fate could be bound up with results of a test or even the fate of whole district. what's interesting about this moment is that that trend towards raising stakes higher and higher has -- can you here me? has finally been confronted by a movement, and perhaps it's suspicious where we did were second. february 1, 1960 was when for college students in north carolina students sat in a direct action in 1960 that sparked a whole new era in the suburbs movement, and mass civil does the despair which had not been up until that point. here we are talking about civil this begets, talking about people refusing to take a test, students, young people refusing to take a test that they're told

by everyone in charge that you'rethey're supposed to be. in some cases we're talking about parents refusing to allow their children to take a test. just opting out it's called. or were talking about very courageous teachers risking their job in some cases refuse to administer standardized tests. all of these things, all those risky behaviors refusing to do it just goes to do in taking direct action to stop the standardized test machine, all those things are on the rise. this book captures the stories actually not just of the four of us but i haven't counted how many people contribute to this book but many stores from all across the country stories of students, parents, teachers of taking these actions and try to figure out where to go from here. we have a fantastic better for you. let me introduce the mall and ask them to system opening remarks. first up we will hear from dao

tran, a parent of an elementary school in newark city. should an editor, a coeditor of the book 101 changemakers rebels and radicals who changed u.s. history. dare i say she is one of them? working on an oral history teacher project right now among other things. she was on her child's pta. after dao will be diane ravitch and education store and a professor emeritus at new york's british not emeritus. i'm still working. >> sorry diane. scratch that from the video. and professor at new york university. diane was a former u.s. assistant secretary of education. and the author of the book reign of error. kind of get that right? okay, and lastly will hear from jesse hagopian. jesse hagopian is a teacher of

history at garfield high school in seattle and the codirector co-advisor to the black student union at the high school. he was in 2013 the winner of secondary teacher of the year by the education association of arts and sciences, and most importantly for our purposes was one of the leading figures in the 2013 not testable, it -- boycott. before we start off with transferred we would be remiss if we did not because there are other test recession in the audience and contributors to the book. somebody just testified in the u.s. senate is over here. [applause] an element a school teacher and parent anthony upper deck rosie, emily, who led a test boycott last year.

[applause] spent and rachel easier. what are the bulldog? andrea from garfield high school. any of the bulldog? good, excellent. these were two of the leaders of the map test boycott so this is a special -- >> fantastic. welcome all. dao, tell us your story about the boycott at your school. >> is this on? so my daughter, she seven now but in new york city you want to send your child to a public school you have to start thinking about and looking for a school when they are like three. so we started looking for school for her. i live in the south bronx and was committed to sending her to a public school, want to send her to our neighborhood zoned school which is right down the block, a beautiful idea send

your kid, walk with him to school. when i went put her in the school, i was to say the least super disappointed because basically our first school experience was basically one of massive amounts of homework, sitting at a desk listening to teacher talk at the front for 15 minutes block of time. no recess. if they were good at the end of the day they would get to do choice time which to me was what most of the school day should've consisted of which is playing which is i think our kids come young kids actually learn. so was not a great experience for her part perch she was super sad. she would wake up every morning and say that her stomach hurt that she felt sick. it was clear to me there was something going on that are needed to address.

and i think what i came to understand was that it wasn't just her classroom our particular teacher. they were really, really lovely. her teacher was super sweet but felt like she was doing what pairs expected in the school district expected and the schools expected which was to prepare our children to take a standardized test. so therefore they structure the day in a way that is completely inappropriate for any kind of joy any kind of solid basis in wanted to go to school and/or learning anything at school. so there was no play, no imagination on and there was no hands-on experience. instead learn how to count by counting buttons, they were learning how to count accounting stars on a page, which is a very different experience and completely i think ineffective,

because you get kids who didn't get frustrated that they are not smart or they are not doing what all these grownups who care about them are expecting that they should be able to do. we basically went through that for a year and felt like we had to try something different. we looked for a different school and were able to find an amazing school which was not in our neighborhood called castle bridge located in washington heights. it's a dual language english spanish progressive school which is completely based it is also a public school, thankfully, completely based on the idea of hands-on arts, music base joyful learning. we were super super excited to get her into. you can imagine how i felt at the beginning of her second year when we were told oh by the

way, she's going along with the of the kindergartners and second graders have to take a standardized test. it's not to measure what they know what they are moving but actually to score and rank and evaluate her teacher. and i was shocked. we have never been told by the city school district or by the state or by the state school administration that they were going to have to do this test. i tried to find out what was going on. there was no information to the only thing i found was an article in "the new york times" from the summer previous is said these tests may be coming. eventually i figured it out that it's a complicated thing that happened because basically the state had to figure out a way to

measure and evaluate teachers and they decided the best way to do that was in part use the scores of very young children to do that. the word got out that basically a number of schools clean the school where my daughter goes some 30 some schools in the city that were too new to have kids who are taking the state test from third grade up couldn't use those scores so they're going to test the very little ones. some of them to be frank couldn't even hold a pencil. so the idea that they were going to be taking a test where they would have to bubble in something really, really made no sense at all. some of his parents we put ourselves in our kids issues. i will read you a little section of the book because i think it helps a way to think about. usually we spend our time playing and learning how to take care of ourselves and our friends but one day our teacher sits down puts a test booklet in front of us.

it has 27 multiple-choice math problems which she will read about and ask us to quote filled in the bubble for the right edge. nevermind some of us have not had jet much experience holding a pencil big nevermind some of us have yet learned how to read. nevermind we may not recognize numbers yet. two of us locate which numbered we are to answer, our teacher will prompt us to find the image of a cat or the key or the i picked this is on the test makers put on the test because they recognized a lot of the littlest kids cannot yet read. but she can't, the teacher can't help us if we are confused and we can't work together as we are usually encouraged to do. how audit. if we don't speak or understand much english too bad. if we have learning challenges or disabilities, too bad. we will get more time to sit in front of the test and get more frustrated, more stressed and more upset. and all those to do what help

our teacher understand what we know and are able to do? know. to make sure we get needed services and support? know. for parents i think if the purpose of the tests were actually to help our children learn, i think most of us would probably be down with that. we want to know how our kids are doing, want to know if they're going to be able to learn and can work with numbers. but as it turns out these tests were not about our children's learning at all. i think we we have made in old-fashioned way and i think a lot of the teachers actually help us to understand this, that there's a good way of knowing whether they know the stuff, which is just by asking them, or asking the teachers who after all spend a majority of their days with him explaining exploring, observing. and i don't think that pearson incorporated or discovery inc. trademark, can have much insight

into children's learning more than their teachers. we were concerned about our whole school at what it would've done to the culture of our whole school. and then be on that we're concerned about all the other schools that were being made to take this test. we thought the best and strongest thing we could do was organize together, pakistan that was very public and i don't know, wholesale you might say. in the end we were able to organize all but three or four families to send in official form saying they didn't want their children to take the test. [applause] >> and i think i will just say i mean it's a good lesson if you're going to do something kind of illegal to do it with a lot of people.

[laughter] what ended up happening was our principal said i can hardly give a test that would be so statistically invalid. how can you break and score a teacher in a vase of water to get test scores? it really would not make any sense. in fact, the state education department acknowledged it is not so sensible to have kindergartners take tests, and they scrapped that idea. [applause] unfortunately not many schools know that comment so i know that this year sums collection went ahead and get those tests anyway, which is a big real tragedy. but all the more reason why we have to be out there and say to people, parents have such an important role to play. we are also the caretakers of our children's education, and they can't fire us. [applause] >> next up diane ravitch.

[applause] >> thank you. i'm thrilled to be here to celebrate jesse's book and the book that so many people contributed to but i would be remiss if i did not acknowledge the presence of mayor de blasio and his wife. [applause] i also can't help but say that the year before the mayoral election started, one of the newspapers was doing around offensive what do you think the next or should you can education? my proposal is the next where she declared a three-year moratorium on standardized testing. [cheers and applause] i think it's important to understand that we are in an unprecedented time in american history. we have never had the federal government up until no child

left behind in 2001 tell the whole country can have the is department of education take control and say when and how children are to be tested, and then to punish schools and teachers who didn't measure up to what the federal government felt was appropriate. no child left behind says by the 2014, 100% of joe will be proficient in reading and math by standardized test. it's 2015 and we didn't make it. so arne duncan gives out waivers and his waiver so you don't have to be subject to that 100% rule but what did you have to do is be subject to my rule and my rules are you to buy what teachers by the test scores of their students. you have to open more charter schools. you must about the common core. you must this, you must that et cetera. and he actually took the waiver away from the state of washington because the legislature refused to go along with the teacher evaluation

peace and, therefore, every school in the entire state of washington is a failing school and that is one form their parents. so we live in an unprecedented time not only because we have this crazy law no child left behind, which had been reauthorized eight years ago should've been thrown in as cheap eight years ago, but instead of the obama administration added raced to the top which is just a new iteration of no child left behind making the punishment more severe because whereas no child left and focused on punishing schools and humiliate in schools raced to the top focus on labeling and punishing teachers. many teachers have been fired. effect over the past, i just read this in an article by leo casey. leo said 4000 public schools have been closed since 2008. rahm emanuel closed 50 public schools in one day. that's never happened before.

we're not talking about continuity with the past. we're talking about a radical extreme break with the past. and a direct attack on public education. the attack is coordinated. it starts with making test scores the most important thing in the world each contribute to the narrative that public education is broken failing. we're falling behind all the other nations in the world come and soon a stone will invade us and take over because after all they have higher test scores. you will never hear any of the people who talk about this mentioned that japan which is at higher test scores than us for the last 50 years has been in a deep recession for years. test scores of 15-year-olds had nothing to do with the economic productivity as a nation. [applause] but what's really scary is the narrative of failing public schools is being hyped and

ratcheted up by the common core because the tests are even harder than those that precede them and so in new york where we praises had about 80% of the kids passing the state test now with 70% thing. 97% of english language learners and. 95% of children with disabilities failing. more than 80% of the children of color failing. this is all an artifact, this is all pearson and the state education department and the board of regents making a decision in advance that they wanted 70% of the kids to fail and saying that it was a validation of their civil rights. excuse me, i don't understand the logic. but when you look at what's happening in washington there is a bipartisan coalition that loves testing and thinks if kids are not able to jump over a

four-foot par we should raise the bar to succeed. and watch more and more of them fail. there is this bipartisan coalition that thinks the testing is essential to the future survival of our nation but it's ridiculous. it is totally ridiculous. i could go on with expression by but i think you know them all. understand what matters most is not your ability to pick the right bubble but your ability to think for yourself to ask the questions, not give the right answer. and to be able to take risk. what we are doing to children with 13 years in some cases, the testing now is in pre-k. when i heard the description what's happening in castle bridge, i kept thinking about districts were kids in pre-k are taking test. i don't know how. i don't have to do that on computers. kids don't know how to keyboard when you're three years old and for your soul. they're in kindergarten taking test in florida there was a child and hospice dying was

forced to take a test. what is this madness that is overtaken our society about standardized testing? i am possibly the oldest person in the root of person in the room at i can say i went to school when there were no standardized tests. the only standardized tests i put it was the s.a.t. and there's no test prep for it. you just took it and they said that's your score. it's all changed now. now the s.a.t. is determined by who can pay the most for tutors. it turns out the s.a.t., the a.c.t. and every test is a measure of family income. if you haven't seen it there's a new book out called the tyranny of the american hockey which some of us have seen and argued for years that whether you look at any of those scores you can correlate them with family income without fail the wealthiest are at the top and the poorest but the bottom. so with the test do is to redistribute privilege. bottom line is we're in an

unprecedented moment in history. it means we're in a place where with all the powers that be lined up in favor of a really terrible regime that people are most powerful don't really think very much about. as you watch and listen to those senators talk about nclb relies you very much about school to give up have been in a school since they were a student. and yet they're making these policies that then strangle our children, in my case grandchildren and what can we do? people as they displayed all the time, what would you. only thing we can do is to disobey. [applause] there is something much older than testing in our society called civil disobedience. and i think when the day comes when the grown-ups learn to be as creative as the -- as the an

people in resisting testing, things will begin to change. 5000 students walked out in colorado, would not take the test. we have an example of the seattle teachers. teachers. i know tougher teachers because their job is on the line, the parents can opt out and they can isn't even when it's not legal to do so because it's their children. if you're the only one who ops outcome you're going to be in trouble or they will do something to threaten you or your child but if the whole school ops outcome if 90% of the parents out they can't do anything. what is needed today is the movement that jesse's book will help to build and that his book reflects, and a willingness to say the powers that be will not listen. things will change as people take action. thank you. [applause]

>> so i can see everybody in the back and just say that there's a great honor to be with these contributors to the book here today and to have other contributors here in the audience and people of plot in this struggle for a long time and we're fund beginning to see some incredible victories that are think are changing this narrative that diane laid out so clearly. and the importance of this work to me really hit home issue because i became a father of a public school student. my son entered kindergarten this year, so i got a whole different perspective on this. in fact, he entered a school that just got changed to be an international school and have bilingual program with spanish and mandarin immersion. they had a big ribbon cutting ceremony for the school. they have this wonderful banner

and all these different cultural events, and all the students in elementary school came out to the front lawn and were sat down and there was a whole bunch of politicians that came to speak at my son's school. the principal gave an amazing speech about what this new school meant a different school board members. and then the governor's education aid came and here she is addressing my kindergartner here and the other students in the school. and she says, i want to congratulate you all for making the choice to come to this school because you are now getting ready to compete in the global economy. cheers did not erupt from the fourth grade section. right clicks i was like yes my son can keep that kid down in

china. my son will be ready to beat down that kid in mexico. thank goodness for this new school. but this is their vision for the purpose of publication, a public education. it's sick. i want to read for you in my research for the book i came across this quote from the common core website. you should go on the common core website and read don't take our word for it. go and listen to the proponents of the common core and find out why they say this to standardize standards and assessments are so needed. and this quote came up from edward d. ross junior chairman and ceo of state farm insurance companies come and he says quote state-by-state adoption of these standards is an important step towards maintaining our country's competitive edge with a skilled and prepared workforce the business community will be better prepared to face the

challenges of the international marketplace right clicks education isn't about collaboration and critical thinking. it's not about helping our kids learn how to interact better with each other. it's about these international global corporations being able to compete with one another. that's the fundamental problem that is happening with the standardization movement and the reason why the struggle of garfield high school erupted i think when it did. i think the testing just became so overbearing. my brave colleagues, specially the ones in the tested subject of reading and math and special education and english language learners, voted unanimously to refuse to administer a deeply flawed exam. i got a phone call from one of the teachers who scheduled to meet with me after school about

an issue. when she told me she's going to refuse to give this test my eyes just lit up because i've been organizing against this test but you mustn't do is ask for going to refuse to give it. this campaign was amazing. we announced it and flowers coming in from across the country, chocolates being sent to garfield high school. every day a book from an author or a letter of support came in from a different region of the country. when the teachers were threatened with a 10 day suspension without pay from the superintendent, the most beautiful thing i've ever seen happened, which was an entire faculty losing its fear. and every threat only emboldens our faculty more so you're going to end up on the long side of history and we're fighting for a bigger vision of the purpose of public education.

[applause] i just want to share a couple quick parts from the book. because what erupted at garfield led to walkouts of students just, just a week later students in portland, oregon, walked out, refused to take the test and the president of the portland teachers union is here somewhere that worked with those young students. and that was incredible to and led to what commentators are calling the education spring, right clicks its ongoing. we are currently the largest revolt against high-stakes testing in u.s. history. we had 60,000 parents opt their kids out in new york state. the walkout that diane said i think is the largest walkout probably in u.s. history of high stakes testing in colorado and colorado. i just want to share a couple of the best just a little stories

that came up in the collection of this book. this one is from providence student union. they wrote passersby in downtown providence jumped, startled as ghoulish looking crowd of young people turned the corner of kennedy plaza, dreams can shine sunken eyes stared and blood splattered clothes track as they shuffle down the street. these dreadful looking men and women gathered at the entrance of the rhode island department of education where instead of battering down the doors in search of brains, these zombies show they already had plenty. one damage to step forward with a megaphone in hand we are here to protest the use of high-stakes standardized testing and the effects it's having on our states accountable. [applause] those students went on to

organize the adults take the test to pick up her hands on one of these tests and they said this is the arbiter of who his career and college ready, okay let's get the lawyers, the doctors, the politicians, the professionals to come take this test. then they held a press conference to release the results. 60% of these professionals failed that test. but yeah this is going to be the arbiter of who's going to be successful in our society. it's just asinine. in chicago, in chicago eight. and preschool teacher wrote this. on april 17, 2013 parents children and early childhood education arrived at the chicago public schools headquarters bright and early. we entered the main lobby and spread out a couple of our blankets on the linoleum tile floor. that's the department of education. i propped up a few of the

handmade picket signs designed by a preschool teacher. who had to work and couldn't join us but who wanted her voice to be heard the we are more than a score, play is every child's human rights. we were approached by a member of the security personnel who inquired about what we were doing. we are playing. was our reply. who told you that you could do that here he asked? at this point more and more parents and children begin to trickle in. julie kept the security guard occupied with questions, whose we talk to to get permission to play? the rest of us welcomed the arriving families with armloads of art supplies dress-up clothes, toys as we begin to stake out more space. [applause] there's so many more stories i wished i could share with you

just created forms of resistance to show what education should be about. and today i had the honor i think of participating in one of the most important forms of resistance to high-stakes standardized testing which is going to the new york consortium school and -- [applause] >> absolutely. people are applauding because the schools have a waiver and don't get the same test, and instead they have a performance-based assessment which i think is such an important alternative to be advocating for as we build this movement. when you get your ph.d at that level they want you to be able to think, write? so instead of filling in bubbles, you develop a dissertation. you have a thesis. you work with an advisor. you collect evidence. if the evidence doesn't support

your thesis you have to revise your thesis. at the end you present your thesis and defend your dissertation. and middle school students are doing this up through high school in every subject. they're able to make it developmentally appropriate. we actually find out that when you put educators in charge of education and of assessment, you can come up with incredible alternatives. it's amazing to know that the new york consortium schools have higher graduation rates. these are public schools who actually have more special needs students than the general public school population and yet have higher graduation rates and also higher graduation rates for the students of color, better college attendance rates, under number of students staying in college. and this is an incredible vision that they're building. i will just i want to end by saying that i think that we face incredible challenges in our

world today that education has to something to say about. we have to repurpose and reclaim the purpose of education. because they there right now are more black men behind bars or on probation or parole and were slaves on plantations in 1850. we have a rampant rape culture in our society that is pushing on college campuses where one in four women report having faced sexual assault at sometime in their life. we have the worst economic inequality in u.s. history were you have 85 people who have as much wealth as the bottom 3.5 billion people on the planet. we had the social catastrophes perhaps none of which as serious as climate change, because we know if the climate rises three degrees that it could be

runaway climate change that we can't reverse. and that than human life will not be supported on our planet. and none of those problems can be solved with a-b-c-d thinking. we have to redesign our education system to empower our students to become leaders, to develop civic courage, to know how to collaborate with each other, to solve real problems that we face in our society if we are going to survive as human beings on this planet. those are the real stakes that we are up against and that's why i'm proud to be in this fight with you all. thank you. [applause] >> that was fantastic, thank you. we have just a little bit of time for some discussion before we have you can get your sign --

get your book signed. also their sign-up sheets now going around if you want to know about future book events sponsored by haymarket books. and just stick around afterwards to talk to the authors and connect and help to build this movement. but for now i'd like to from you a few more thoughts. one of the arguments in favor of standardized testing is it's a measure of accountability and transparency. and how do we counter that argument, which is the principal thing. basic teachers who don't want to get these tests are just trying to avoid any responsibility, avoid accountability. they don't want their feet held to the fire. the students are not doing well. what do we say to that? >> the first thing i would say is where's the accountability for the ceos who sabotage the global economy? [applause] we are for accountability, but i

think it for should be applied evenly throughout society. and the other thing is we see a much better accountability system right here in new york with the new york consortium schools that are having better outcomes for our students of color and for the students in general. and i think that's a smokescreen. i think that accountability argument is really about busting up the teachers unions. it's really about bella fine teachers and -- vilifying teachers, died the fact that they're systematically underfunding our schools denying the kids that need the most resources to succeed and achieve. [applause] >> i would say brian, there is nothing less transparent than standardized testing. there's also the accountability attached to it is usually wrong. for instance with the tests that are given as part of common

core and with a lot of other tests, standardized tests as well, teachers are not allowed to see the questions and afterwards the grades come in or the scores come in when the student is a longer in the same classroom, and a new teacher doesn't know the children and they don't see the tests either. so they learn nothing from the test. the purpose of the test should be diagnostic. when you go to a doctor you what the doctor to tell you which are temperature was. was. you don't want to was 50 to one it is the abolition of six months from now. i will let you know, but it will just be comparing you to other people and not you in particular, something like that. if the teacher just says, learned the child is a four three, two or one that is not accountability are there so transparency because they don't want to release the questions. the reason why is because if they did people would be picking them apart and think this is ridiculous. is as absurd. there are two right answers.

there's no right answer. the question is misleading. in fact, i think i recently read some the test makers are saying, well it's actually a part test which new york may be testing, may be taking. the instructions say that they're going to have answers that are plausible but incorrect. that means they're going to be tricky and deceptive. the really thoughtful child me pondered and pondered and choose the plausible answer to the test makers considers incorrect. where you could have a good discussion about what really is the right answer, and the fact that the standardized test is not a good form of accountability, there really is only one purpose right now. is to say we don't trust teachers. it's to say that teachers judgment are not worthy. because i think back before the air of standardized testing we've always had a little bit but never high-stakes, but the idea was that you can trust

teachers judgment but if you want to know how the student was doing, she said you'd go and ask the teacher. the teacher knows if the child can read. why would you expect a test to tell you more than the teacher knows? the fact is we already have lots of -- accountability the means punishment. we know what we need to know through nape. nape releases the results for every state every other you but if you want to compare missouri to oklahoma or mississippi to massachusetts, it's there in nape. you don't need to do all the individual student testing to find a. nape disaggregate discourse by race, gender, english language learners disability, et cetera, et cetera. we don't need all these additional testifying that what we already know from nape, and

nape will tell us the kid to come from advantage toms have higher scores indicate who live in poverty. this is nothing new. why do we need to keep doing that? >> speaking of that issue one of the things that people will say to disparage the movement against standardized testing will say it's something taken hold among certain type of parents. that is predominant white middle-class parents not working-class parents generally, not parents of color. what do you all say to that? >> so the first thing i would say, remind people of arne duncan making that very argument saying that those who are against the common core testing our white suburban moms managing to basically disparage everybody in the movement. because the fact is look at this panel, right? look at who wrote for this book. and write up your are three people of color that are helping to lead this movement right?

there are many other leaders of color that i think first off we need to recognize them people like terry lewis in chicago who are fighting back. [applause] there's an important leadership of color. jia here as well that is helping to lead this movement. i also think that it is true that it needs to deepen and broaden its roots in communities of color as well. and i think it's important for the opt out movement, the boycott movement to understand the role that these tests play in maintaining institutional racism and take up this fight as an antiracist struggle. if you know the history of standardized testing, you know these attest first into the public schools through the eugenics movement, right? openly proud white supremacists who wanted to show the black people were beyond civilization, so people like karl bring them from princeton who designed the s.a.t. test is one of the most

famous eugenicists in the nation. and when you understand that these tests came out of that what sense does that make that these tests are the key to closing the achievement gap like we here in the rhetoric from the corporate education reformers? so our movement against a state testing needs to take up explicitly an antiracist struggle that i think will help broaden the movement to other communities, and i think that means joining the black lives matter movement and to find black lives matter not just a we don't want to be shut down industry with impunity, but that we also want an education fit for our kids that's culturally relevant an antiracist. [applause] >> last -- to go ahead. >> i want to say something really quick about that.

it is important to recognize, i have spoken to a lot of parents of color. when we did our campaign, our school is at least half latino and african-american, if not more actually. a good number of those people also, recent immigrants who don't speak english, and so in some ways i think it was about breaking through the mythology that has been built up around these tests that says here's your ticket to a fair playing field. that's how it is put out there that that's what it is but in fact, it is the complete opposite. and i think really exposing that for what it is and saying him you know what? when they say here's a standard for your child to get, you should get it but we're not going to support you or your teachers in helping your child get there. your child came to the united states not speaking english. this is like for high school students, i will put out this example, eight months later they are expected to take a test reading in english full

paragraphs comprehension. to me that's not just unfair. that's downright abusive. what are you saying to kids who can actually comprehend what's printed? imagine if you had to go and take a test in vietnamese. i'm sure that all of us they be except me, would fail. know what i mean? i think it is exposing how the tests, test makers and the whole culture about testing has been able to steal the language of our civil rights movement and say that this is going to end racism. no, it's the opposite it's going to help entrench it and that's what i think we have to really take a stand against it and expose it for what it is. [applause] >> final question. one of the themes reading through the book is a

transformative nature of the experience of going through a boycott, that at garfield, at castle bridge around the country that people find themselves in their dinners and the schools transformed by the process of this. diane, i know you kind of speaking a dork and have a feel for the movement nationally. what you think is happening to people who take this leap, who decide to try to challenge? >> i'm sure it must be incredibly empowering and i think that i'm not the person to answer because i never boycotted a test nor lead a boycott but i encourage people to opt out. i just have to add in terms of the last discussion, that part of the challenge of this monolith we face the power, is 19 civil rights groups signed a joint statement endorsing annual high-stakes testing and asking that he be retained in the new version of no child left behind.

i communicate, i had any change with people at the legal defense fund. i totally don't understand why 19 groups did this. i could make guesses but they wouldn't be informed guesses. but it just shows i think the importance of building the movement from below because even the people who run these organizations are so far removed or what's happening in schools and the families and the children that the power has been hands of parents and teachers and students, because that's where the change is going to come from. >> just really quickly. i think one of the things that we found out in organizing with the parents at my school is that when i started asking parents, what do you want for your child, how do you think that they would learn best? there was a little bit of debate because i think a lot of parents

came from a fairly traditional or industrial model of schooling themselves. and so i'm sure it is more free-form kind of played would be the best thing, but we had discussions about it and we really tried to hash it out. one of the things that i think became clear was i said look at the models of the best education that we have in this country, which you have to pay for. let's be honest. and to send their kids to the schools and why did they send their kids to those schools? they don't take the test. they don't even worry about it. i did this. i went to a private school in the city and one of the first things they will say as a selling point is common core standardized state tests, we don't do them. i think we started to say to our

parents, look, if it's good enough for arne duncan or whomever, president obama, maybe it's good enough for our kids. it's what we deserve a plot that -- it's what we deserve. [applause] >> i just want to speak to the discretion of a transformative nature of this struggle because i think that garfield high school is a really exciting place to teach ma because of the courage of the teachers there that transformed the culture. and that collective refusal emboldened an entire staff. so this year the superintendent announced that we're going to lose a teacher. they were going to cut a teacher at garfield high school nine weeks into the schools are after kids have already done put all this work into a glass. it was going to leave 150 students without a class. and some of those students needed that class to graduate. it would put the graduation in jeopardy.

we held a staff meeting to figure out what to do about this problem, and i said we've got to do something about this. we should go and proud of the school board and tell them about how we can't lose his teacher. at another teacher said, that's not going to do anything. let's just walk out. [laughter] oh, yeah. that's a good idea. [laughter] and the entire building emptied of all the students and the teachers who said this is outrageous. we are not going to stand for this. they said oh yeah, just kidding. we were planning on doing that. we saved our teacher. the black student union at garfield now used used one the city human rights award for leading a march, first marching to the precinct demanding that black lives matter and then leading a walkout the day after he was no indictment of darren

wilson. and they're becoming leaders not just for the school but for the entire city in defining the black lives matter means the acting is all part of this growing struggle. i just want to say one last thing about the transformed of nature of these struggles. i want to just end i reading a quick passage, if i can. there's a chapter in your you should not miss, which is by a young woman named amber who went to a school in new york state. she was the school's valedictorian, and because she of the best grades and highest test scores she was told by the principle she had to give the graduation speech for the school. and she said actually not i don't have anything to say. i'm not a good public speaker. i'm not going to give this. the principles of the it's not that you don't have to, it's just that you would be bringing

shame to your family and the whole school for breaking our tradition of having the valedictorian. finally, he basically forces her to give a speech. at the graduation. and so i printed her speech in the book and she titled the speech, this is in the program, right, that is handed out to everyone in the audience, she titled her speech (518)455-4767, the phone number of a state representative pushing the high-stakes testing on -- [laughter] right? syngenta give a speech is a quick answer for what she said. she said as for the argument that these assessments are challenging our students more, sure that's true to its adjusted at the same amount of material into one year with more exhibited challenge to memorize loads of facts in time for the next test.

it's also a challenge to the day teaspoon of cinnamon and one by without choking but what are you really accomplishing? [laughter] at this point i would like to throw a slightly relevant quote by a famous person into the mix to make my speech seymour legitimate. that appears to be how these things work. so albert einstein once said everyone is a genius but it judged the fish but its ability to climb a tree it will leave -- it will live its whole life believing it is student we can't judge someone's intelligence i how well he does in a small group of isolated classes. everyone learns differently so education is not something that can be successfully standardized test. nwa, this is what i try to hard to get out of this speech. not because i don't respect all of you. i do it's just that between is a label and i don't respect what it stands for. i am not the smartest person in the class. i could learn something new from every one of you. i'm good at memorizing things,

but that's not so useful outside of the standardized world of high school and i'm pretty sure a lot of you have been more successful than i was come in less your standard for judging success is a scantron sheet. [applause] to me am of those words were particularly meaningful as someone who spent my whole life being humiliated by these tests, i knew i wasn't intelligent for most of my life and to see someone who aced this a new that this was a scam meant a lot to me. and you can see how these struggles are transforming people all over the country but and i think it's time to get on the right side of history and help build this movement. [applause] >> let's give one more round of applause to die and jesse and

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>> host: a lot of new technology is shown every year, and telecommunications are also presented. joining us we're going to take a tour with tim moynihan of "wired" magazine. tim, we're in the lg booth here. what's in here that made you want to see this booth? >> guest: you name it. lg makes a lot of things. my primary area of coverage is television. hg is a very unique -- lg is a very unique company because they make olb sets, people see it as the future of picture quality. lg right now is the only ones really making that in scale. >> host: is it